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From the nursery, Psyche could hear Molly’s voice, comically high-pitched as she read Lucas a story. Psyche’s heart pinched; it was hard, withdrawing from her son so he could bond with Molly, but it had to be done. She’d fought the good fight. Psyche had done everything she could to stay alive, but it was a losing battle, and she knew it. Every day she was weaker than the one before. Every day the world seemed a little less real, a little less solid, as though she were retreating from it somehow, dissolving like a wisp of smoke.
She wasn’t even dead yet, she thought, and she already knew what it felt like to be a ghost.
Downstairs the doorbell chimed.
Supporting herself by keeping one hand to the corridor wall, Psyche made her slow way toward the elevator.
When the door opened on the first floor, Keegan was waiting there, quick to offer an arm and a gentle smile. His McKettrick-blue eyes were dark with a sorrow he was trying hard to hide.
Something swelled in Psyche’s throat. Made it impossible to speak.
Keegan took in the caftan and the flowing scarf. “You look as beautiful as ever,” he said.
Psyche knew he was lying, and she blessed him for it, and for giving her a moment to regain her composure. “Stop it, you flattering scoundrel,” she said. Then, with a twinkle, “But not right away.”
He laughed hoarsely and bent to kiss her forehead. He was still gripping her arm, firmly but gently, and when she wavered a little, turning to lead the way to the back sunporch, where Florence had set the table for lunch, he swooped her up into his arms and carried her.
Tears stung her eyes. She had forgotten such gallantry existed.
When they reached the rear of the house Florence was there, arranging snow-white peonies, big as salad plates, in a shimmering crystal bowl.
Psyche gasped at the sight of her favorite flower. It was the third of July, and the last of the peonies in her garden in Flagstaff had been gone for two weeks. “Where on earth did you get those?” she asked Florence, putting a hand to her heart.
“Keegan brought them,” Florence said, sniffling once before resetting her shoulders to their usual proud lines.
Keegan lowered Psyche carefully into one of the chairs at the table. His neck was a little flushed.
Psyche strained to kiss his cheek and gave voice to an earlier thought. “I should have married you, Keegan McKettrick.”
He smiled. “I tried to tell you,” he teased.
“Sit down so I can serve this lunch,” Florence blustered, uncomfortable with all the emotion. “I been slaving in that kitchen all morning long.”
Keegan chuckled, drew back the chair next to Psyche’s and sat.
Florence brought in a tureen of chilled avocado soup and a platter of biscuits first, then one of her complicated and patently delicious salads. In the meantime, Keegan popped the top on the bottle of vintage champagne chilling in the center of the table and poured some into Psyche’s flute, then his own.
“Ambrosia,” Psyche said after taking a sip.
Keegan raised an eyebrow. “Are you supposed to have alcohol with your medication?” he asked.
Psyche laughed and toasted him before raising the glass to her lips again. After swallowing, she retorted cheerfully, “The stuff could kill me.”
Keegan’s smile was gentle, but his eyes were moist. “That’s not funny,” he said.
Psyche reached out and clasped his hand, but just for a moment. She still had some pride, and it was bad enough letting her childhood sweetheart see her as an invalid without his feeling her bony fingers and tremulous grasp. “Yes, it is,” she argued. “And don’t you dare feel sorry for me, Keegan McKettrick. I could not bear that.”
After that, they ate. It gave them something to do, though Psyche suspected Keegan’s appetite was no better than her own, and he, like her, was just going through the motions. Neither of them would have hurt Florence’s feelings for the world.
“I have a favor to ask of you,” Psyche said when they’d both given up and pushed their plates away.
Keegan waited.
Psyche suppressed an urge to lay a hand to his cheek, to tell him not to look so sad, that everything would be all right. Instead, she stared at the peonies for a long time, until they blurred into a misty mass of feathery white.
“Lucas is going to inherit a great deal of money,” she said finally. She sat up very straight and prayed Keegan wouldn’t interrupt, because it would take all she had to say what she had to say, and starting over would probably be impossible. “Except for Florence, there’s nobody in the world I trust as much as you. She’s getting older, though, and when I—when I die, she’s going to Seattle to live with her sister. I made her promise she would. Molly—” Out of the corner of her eye Psyche saw him stiffen at the name, and she rushed to get all the words out. “Molly will raise Lucas, but I’d like you to serve as my executor. See that my son’s estate is protected and preserved.”
“Psyche—”
She raised a hand. “Don’t,” she said. “Let me finish, please.”
He nodded.
“Teach Lucas to ride horseback, Keegan. Teach him not to be afraid. Teach him to play baseball and to—and to be a boy.”
“Let me bring him up, Psyche,” Keegan said, and she knew he meant it, bless his heart.
“He needs a mother,” Psyche insisted.
“You’re his mother,” Keegan replied. “That isn’t going to change.”
Psyche began to cry. Grabbed up a linen table napkin and swabbed at her wet face. “Molly’s going to adopt him,” she said. “As soon as I’m gone. I’ve already made all the preliminary arrangements.”
Keegan frowned. “Why her? Of all people, Psyche, why her?”
Psyche wouldn’t, couldn’t, look at him again. The linen napkin wafted to the stone floor of the porch, and she intertwined her fingers in her lap. “So you knew, then? About Molly and Thayer?”
“I knew,” Keegan confirmed, biting out the words.
“Something good came out of their affair, Keegan,” Psyche said, desperate to make him understand. Lucas would need him in the years to come. Her boy would need a man to help him grow, and Keegan McKettrick was the best one she knew.
She saw the realization dawn in his eyes. They widened, then narrowed.
“She’s his biological mother,” he rasped.
Psyche nodded. “Thayer came to me only a few hours after Lucas was born and told me everything. He begged me not to divorce him—said we could raise Lucas together, as our son, that Molly was willing to give him up. The simple truth is I wanted a child so badly that I agreed.”
“Oh, my God,” Keegan said on a long breath.
“I loved Lucas with all my heart from the first moment I saw him,” Psyche went on, because she was almost out of strength. “I’ve never regretted what I did, not for a moment. I want him to have a good life, Keegan, and you and I both know, that takes more than money. Please—tell me you’ll look after him… .”
Keegan slid out of his chair, crouched beside Psyche, took both her hands in his, held them with a gentleness that tore her heart like paper.
“I give you my word, Psyche,” he said, looking up at her.
She smiled through her tears. Pulled a hand free to stroke his sleek chestnut hair lightly. “McKettrick-true?” she asked.
“McKettrick-true,” he promised.
She sagged with relief and exhaustion, let herself cry against his strong shoulder. “I should have married you,” she said again.
He held her. “Let’s pretend you did,” he replied gruffly. “I’ll take care of your boy, Psyche—just as if we’d made him together.”
Psyche gave a shuddering sob. “Thank you,” she murmured.
As surely as if she’d had the room wired for sound, Florence appeared. “You’re all done in, Miss Psyche,” she said. “Time you rested for a spell.”
Psyche nodded, her head still resting on Keegan’s shoulder.
He stood, lifted Psyche into his arms again. Carried her—not to the elevator, but up the winding staircase at the front of the house. The one she’d come down, in a prom dress, so long ago. He’d been waiting shyly at the bottom that night, in a tuxedo, with a white peony corsage in his hand.
He mounted the second staircase, too, without so much as breathing hard. Florence followed at a slower pace.
When they reached the third floor Molly was standing in the corridor, watching with sad, enormous eyes.
Psyche felt Keegan tense.
Molly stepped aside.
“This way,” Florence said grimly.
Keegan carried Psyche into her room, laid her gently on the bed. Bent to kiss her forehead.
“Don’t forget your promise,” Psyche told him.
“McKettrick-true,” he reminded her. He curved a little finger, and Psyche hooked it with her own.
Then she smiled, closed her eyes and gave herself up to sleep.
* * *
MOLLY WAITED in the hallway outside Psyche’s room, longing to disappear but too stubborn to run.
After a few minutes Keegan came out. Stopped when he saw her standing there. Narrowed his gaze.
“Is she—is Psyche all right?” she asked.
He hesitated, took a step toward her, stopped again.
Molly stood her ground.
“Bad news for you,” Keegan said in a scathing undertone. “She’s still alive.”
Fury surged through Molly; trembling violently, she clenched her fists at her sides. If it hadn’t been for Lucas, and for poor Psyche, she might have launched herself at him, kicking and slugging.
Psyche’s door was closed from inside with an eloquent little snap.
Molly advanced, looked right up into Keegan’s outraged face. “Of all the reprehensible things to say!” she whispered.
He grasped her elbow and shuffled her down the hall, well away from Psyche’s door—and Lucas’s. “You want to hear ‘reprehensible,’ lady? Reprehensible is sleeping with another woman’s husband, then having the gall to move into her house and take over raising her son!”
He’s my son! Molly wanted to shout. But of course she didn’t. She simply stood there, drawing deep breaths and releasing them slowly until she knew she could address this impossible man without shrieking every word.
Keegan only made matters worse. Jabbing at Molly’s collarbone with the tip of one index finger, he growled, “Get ready for the fight of your life, Ms. Shields. Psyche believes she’s doing the right thing, the honorable thing, letting you adopt Lucas, because you’re his birth mother. But there’s one flaw in her logic—one she’s too sick and too weak and too damn desperate to see. If you’d really wanted that baby, you wouldn’t have signed off on him the way you did.”
Molly couldn’t have been more stunned if Keegan had struck her a physical blow. She felt light-headed, swayed and reached out to press a hand to the wall of the corridor, so she wouldn’t fall.
Keegan was relentless. “I’ll stop you any way I can,” he said. “You may pull off this—adoption—but I’m the executor of Psyche’s estate, and you won’t get a plugged nickel of that kid’s money, so if you’ve got a boyfriend waiting in some tropical hideaway for your ship to come in, honey, you’d better just write this con game off as a loss and get on the next bus out of town!”
That did it. Molly drew back her hand, and she would have slapped him, except that he caught her wrist in a hold that was just short of painful.
Tears of dizzying anger and frustration rushed to her eyes. “You—don’t—understand,” she said, and it was as if someone else had spoken the words, from a distance.
“I understand plenty,” Keegan snapped, flinging her hand free. “You’re the one who doesn’t get it, sugarplum. You’re in way over your head here. Go find another gravy train.”
Molly rallied. “You listen to me, you obnoxious bastard!” she choked out in a whisper that scraped at her throat like a wad of steel wool. “I’m not a crook, and I’m not some airheaded little bimbo you can bully onto a bus, either!”
He glared at her.
She glared back.
Both of them took deep breaths.
“This isn’t over,” he said.
“It sure as hell isn’t,” she replied.
He turned and stormed down the hall to the top of the stairs.
Molly just stood there, leaning against the wall, afraid her legs wouldn’t support her if she tried to walk.
When she felt able, she made her way back into the nursery.
Lucas slept, curled into a plump little ball in the middle of his crib, one thumb in his mouth. The windows were closed and latched, but a breeze ruffled his fine spun-gold hair just the same.
Wild thoughts rushed through Molly’s head, an onslaught, sweeping all logic and reason before them.
She could snatch him up in her arms, make a run for it.
Disappear.
Empty her bank accounts.
Start over somewhere, with a new name. Dye her hair, and Lucas’s, too. Call him Tommy or Johnny…
Stop, she thought.
She couldn’t do that to Lucas, or to Psyche.
